This program proposal seeks support for a Memory Disorders Research Center which is dedicated to the study of the information- processing deficits underlying memory disturbances of individuals suffering brain injury or disease. These investigations will utilize contemporary research techniques and instrumentation to explore the on-line processing impairments of amnesic patients. This will permit greater understanding of the memory process and will provide a basis for differential assessment and therapy. Toward this end, four independent, yet interrelated projects are proposed. The first (Issues) focuses on unresolved issues of amnesia including an analysis of the relative contributions of episodic and semantic memory to implicit priming; compilation and organizational aspects of procedural learning; reconstruction and familiarity as aspects of contextual learning and, finally, factors underlying remote memory disturbances. The second component (Case Studies) seeks to describe unique individual cases of amnesia both from a clinical and issue-driven experimental point of view. Alcoholic Korsakoff, post-encephalitic, anoxic, bilateral temporal, retrosplenial and selective stroke patients will be assessed for their dissociative memorial abilities and disabilities. The third component (Neuroanatomy) explores the neuroanatomy of amnesia using neuro-imaging techniques such as MRI and CAT scans. This will culminate in a greater understanding of the neural systems underlying memory and information processing. The fourth component (Assessment and Therapy) will develop an assessment battery to permit the differential diagnosis of amnesic patients along many of the dimensions explored in the Issues Component of this proposal. This assessment will then provide a basis for therapeutic attempts with some of these amnesic individuals. The entire Center will be administered, organized and monitored through the development of a Core administration depicted in the fifth, and final component of this program project. This will include administrative assistance, secretarial support, consults and educational opportunities. The entire program will thus bring together research from otherwise diverse, and often disparate, areas of investigation to explore the behavioral, cognitive and neural underpinnings of amnesia.